The meeting over,the singing girls go back to the Training Home,and the men prepare for bed.Our sleeping arrangements are somewhat primitive;we do not provide feather beds,and when you go into our dormitories,you will be surprised to find the floor covered by what look like an endless array of packing cases.These are our beds,and each of them forms a cubicle.There is a mattress laid on the floor,and over the mattress a leather apron,which is all the bedclothes that we find it possible to provide.The men undress,each by the side of his packing box,and go to sleep under their leather covering.The dormitory is warmed with hot water pipes to a temperature of 60degrees,and there has never been any complaint of lack of warmth on the part of those who use the Shelter.The leather can be kept perfectly clean,and the mattresses,covered with American cloth,are carefully inspected every day,so that no stray specimen of vermin may be left in the place.The men turn in about ten o'clock and sleep until six.We have never any disturbances of any kind in the Shelters.We have provided accommodation now for several thousand of the most helplessly broken-down men in London,criminals many of them,mendicants,tramps,those who are among the filth and offscouring of all things;but such is the influence that is established by the meeting and the moral ascendancy of our officers themselves,that we have never had a fight on the premises,and very seldom do we ever hear an oath or an obscene word.Sometimes there has been trouble outside the Shelter,when men insisted upon coming in drunk or were otherwise violent;but once let them come to the Shelter,and get into the swing of the concern,and we have no trouble with them.In the morning they get up and have their breakfast and,after a short service,go off their various ways.We find that we can do this,that is to say,we can provide coffee and bread for breakfast and for supper,and a shake-down on the floor in the packing-boxes I have described in a warm dormitory for fourpence a head.
I propose to develop these Shelters,so as to afford every man a locker,in which he could store any little valuables that he may possess.I would also allow him the use of a boiler in the washhouse with a hot drying oven,so that he could wash his shirt over night and have it returned to him dry in the morning.Only those who have had practical experience of the difficulty of seeking for work in London can appreciate the advantages of the opportunity to get your shirt washed in this way--if you have one.In Trafalgar Square,in 1887,there were few things that scandalised the public more than the spectacle of the poor people camped in the Square,washing their shirts in the early morning at the fountains.If you talk to any men who have been on the road for a lengthened period they will tell you that nothing hurts their self-respect more or stands more fatally in the way of their getting a job than the impossibility of getting their little things done up and clean.
In our poor man's "Home"everyone could at least keep himself clean and have a clean shirt to his back,in a plain way,no doubt;but still not less effective than if he were to be put up at one of the West End hotels,and would be able to secure anyway the necessaries of life while being passed on to something far better.This is the first step.
SOME SHELTER TROPHIES.
Of the practical results which have followed our methods of dealing with the outcasts who take shelter with us we have many striking examples.Here are a few,each of them a tran of a life experience relating to men who are now active,industrious members of the community upon which but for the agency of these Depots they would have been preying to this day.
A.S.--Born in Glasgow,1825.Saved at Clerkenwell,May 19,1889.
Poor parents raised in a Glasgow Slum.Was thrown on the streets at seven years of age,became the companion and associate of thieves,and drifted into crime.The following are his terms of imprisonment:--14days,30days,30days.60days,60days (three times in succession),4months,6months (twice),9months,18months,2years,6years,7years (twice),14years;40years 3months and 6days in the aggregate.Was flogged for violent conduct in gaol 8times.
W.M.("Buff").--Born in Deptford,1864,saved at Clerkenwell,March 31st,1889.His father was an old Navy man,and earned a decent living as manager.Was sober,respectable,and trustworthy.Mother was a disreputable drunken slattern:a curse and disgrace to husband and family.The home was broken up,and little Buff was given over to the evil influences of his depraved mother.His 7th birthday present from his admiring parent was a "quarten o'gin."He got some education at the One Tun Alley Ragged School,but when nine years old was caught apple stealing,and sent to the industrial School at Ilford for 7years.Discharged at the end of his term,he drifted to the streets,the casual wards,and Metropolitan gaols,every one of whose interiors he is familiar with.He became a ringleader of a gang that infested London;a thorough mendicant and ne'er-do-well;a pest to society.
Naturally he is a born leader,and one of those spirits that command a following;consequently,when he got Salvation,the major part of his following came after him to the Shelter,and eventually to God.
